[whataretheysaying] Mary Madigan: What I'd like to do for my summer vacation..

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
What I'd like to do for my summer vacation..
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1201579654.shtml


   Space Ship Two [1]is unveiled:

     In olden days, astronauts were fit, healthy young men with years of
     specialist training. Now, all that is required to show the Right
     Stuff seems to be a large checkbook and a reliable heartbeat. If an
     88-year-old can make it through "astronaut training," then surely
     almost anyone can.

     That is good news for Virgin Galactic, one of a number of firms
     proposing to take people into space at a price measured in
     thousands, rather than millions of dollars. On Jan. 23 the firm
     unveiled the vehicles it plans to use to give the world's
     moderately well heeled pensioners (and anyone else with a couple of
     hundred grand to burn) the ride of their lives.

     Cynics who were around at the time of the Apollo missions may be
     forgiven for thinking they have heard it all before...

     ... Flying into space on Virgin's SpaceShipTwo, itself launched
     from a special aircraft, called White Knight Two, is both a small
     step and a giant leap. It is small because, like NASA's first
     attempts, it is a quick, sub-orbital flight -- and purists might
     argue that real spaceflight involves going into orbit. It is giant
     because no privately funded effort has come this far, nor seemed so
     likely to succeed.

     For that success to be sustained, however, this project and its
     successors must bring down costs and open up new markets and
     different destinations. Some firms are already eyeing the moon,
     though that would require much more powerful rockets...

     ...It is famously difficult to predict the market for disruptive
     technologies, whether they be computers, muskets, jet engines or
     digital cameras. But cheap access to space, and to the other side
     of the Earth, is likely to be revolutionary.

     For many years the question has been why taxpayers should pay to
     put people into space. The point of private-sector space travel is
     that the world will rapidly and accurately come to a conclusion
     about what space is for. The invisible hand may, indeed, point
     upwards. Then again, it may not.

     If it does, however, it may also point to a revolution of a
     different kind. Many people date the emergence of the environmental
     movement to the publication of a photograph taken from Apollo 8 of
     the Earth rising over the lunar horizon.

     When space becomes a democracy -- or, at least, a plutocracy -- the
     rich risk-takers who have seen the fragile Earth from above might
     form an influential cohort of environmental activists. Those cynics
     who look at SpaceShipTwo and think only of the greenhouse gases it
     is emitting may yet be in for a surprise.

   I can't afford the trip, but I did offer to be ballast on the test
   flight for the previous model. [2]That offer still stands
   
   Or, if anyone is in the mood to hit the tipjar, I'll take the tour and
   blog it... :-)
   

References

   1. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/348825_touristonline28.html
   2. http://deanesmay.com/posts/1201535208.shtml